Who woulda thunk it - Delaware Biggest Tax Haven

When one thinks about tax havens, tiny tropical islands and corrupt banana Republics comes to mind. Not so says the Tax Justice Network. Nope it's Delaware, the incorporation haven of the U.S.A.

According to the Delaware Secretary of State's office their operating budget was $12 million in 2007 and they made $24 million in the fees for expedited incorporation filings alone.

There are currently some 695,000 active entities registered in Delaware, including 50 percent of the corporations publically traded on the U.S. stock exchange.

New business formations in Delaware are currently running at about 130,000 per annum.

The growth of private individual deposits by non-residents was most robust in the United States outranking other popular financial jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, United Kingdom, and Luxembourg with total non-resident deposits equalling $2.6 trillion in 2007.

The Tax Justice Network blames the origins of the financial crisis on offshore tax havens.

Many of the roots of the current global economic crisis trace back to offshore financial centres located in tax havens. These include both those located in the smaller, mostly island states like Cayman and Jersey, and the larger tax havens like the City of London, Switzerland, Dublin, Delaware or Luxembourg.